Gunshots have been heard in the Jammu and Kashmir region, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed enemy nations, it has been reported.In a massive breach of a 2003 ceasefire pact, Pakistani troops started the unprovoked attack, local soldiers claimed.Indian soldiers retaliated and sporadic gunfire is still being exchanged between the forces, reports Express.co.uk.

There has been a massive spike in breaks of the ceasefire pact – a key confidence-building measure between the neighbouring countries – in recent months.

SIX DEAD after armed militants storm Indian army base

Indian paramilitary soldiers take position during a terrorist attack on Sunjwan Military station in Jammu

Last year there were a massive 881 ceasefire violations between the two nuclear nations.The worrying figure represents a 230% rise compared with 2016 – it is also the highest count in more than a decade.Last month saw 134 violations between the two nations as tensions have continued to soar.

Meanwhile, the leaders of both nations recently received a letter from civil society groups in the area requesting the ceasefire is adhered to along the contested border, known as the Line of Control.

Executive director of Indian newspaper the Kashmir Times, Anuradha Bhasin, said the situation was turning “from bad to worse”.He said: “The situation is going from bad to worse on the borders.“That has only increased the sufferings of people on both sides.”

Mr Bhasin is part of a petition that is pushing for an end to the frightening confrontations.

It states that if tensions persist “it will jeopardise the stability of the region and might escalate into an all-out war”.

Pakistan has continued to shell across the disputed border killing four Indian soldiers on February 4, prompting an outcry in New Delhi.

It had been relatively quiet this year, until geologists recorded a 1.3 magnitude quake last weekend in Morris Plains, and then a 1.0 magnitude quake Saturday in Morristown.

Last weekend’s tremor was reported by Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Observatory to the Morris Plains Police Department, which issued an advisory to residents on Monday morning.

Lamont-Doherty spokesman Kevin Krajick said the quake was pinpointed to a shallow depth of 6 kilometers just north of Grannis Avenue, between Mountain and Sun Valley ways, about 500 feet southeast of Mountain way School.

“I’d be willing to bet that you’d have to go all the way to Canada and all the way to South Carolina before you’d get one that active,” Gates said of the area which runs from the New York state line in the Ringwood and Mahwah area down to Butler and central Passaic County, Gates said.

Of last year’s 16 earthquakes, 12 were directly associated with the faults around Butler, Gates said.

Butler Councilman Ray Verdonik said area residents are well aware of the frequency of earthquakes and agrees they are often difficult to discern.

During one earthquake, the councilman said he and his neighbors rushed from their homes.

“We thought it was from Picatinny Arsenal or a sonic boom.” he said.

Won-Young Kim, director of the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network, which monitors earthquakes in the Northeast, said often very shallow, the low magnitude quakes’ waves cause much ground motion. He said even though the waves don’t travel very far, they can seem more intense than the magnitude suggests.

They may not topple chimneys, he said but can crack foundations and frighten residents.

To put earthquake magnitudes in perspective, experts said each year there are about 900,000 earthquakes of 2.5 magnitude or less recorded annually by seismograph. These mild tremors are usually not felt.

There are 30,000 that measure between 2.5 and 5.4, and these are often felt, but cause minor damage.

About 500 quakes worldwide are recorded between 5.5 and 6 magnitude per year and cause slight damage to buildings and structures.

The 100 that fall within 6.1 and 6.9 may cause lots of damage in populated areas.

The 20 or so which fall within the 7 and 7.9 magnitude per year are considered major and cause serious damage.

Those that measure at 8 or greater can totally destroy communities near the epicenter and average one every five to 10 years.

The earthquake recorded in Mexico last week measured 7.1 magnitude.

Gates said he has identified most of the region’s numerous faults, but has yet to name them all. Among the unnamed include the faults responsible for last year’s quakes in the region.

Plates are the masses of the earth’s crust that slowly move, maybe as little as a few centimeters a year to as much 18 centimeters, around the globe. Faults such as the San Andreas are interplate and occur near where two plates meet.

The plate North America rides upon runs from the Mid Atlantic Ridge to the Pacific Coast. The theory is that as plates interact with one another, they create stress within the plate. Faults occur where the crust is weak, Gates said. Earthquakes relieve the built up pressure.

Boston College Geophysics Professor John Ebel said he and a Virginia Tech colleague, believe the seismically active areas in New York and South Carolina are where some 200 million years ago, the plates tried to break off but failed. This led to a weakening of the earth’s crust which makes them susceptible to quakes.

While not predictable, the data collected seem to suggest earthquakes occur somewhat periodically, 40 active years followed by 40 less active, Gates said.

“We are over due for a 3 or 4” magnitude, Gates said. “A 4 you’d feel. It would shake the area. Everybody would be upset.”

Ebel does not fully agree. He said saying “overdue” might be somewhat misleading. Earthquakes happen through a slow process of rising stress, “like dropping individual grains of sand on the table.”

You never know which grain will cause the table to break, he said.

Still all three experts say statistically it is only a matter time before a magnitude 5 quake is recorded in the northern New Jersey area.

The scientists said quakes in the Northeastern part of the United States tend to come 100 years apart and the last one was recorded in 1884 believed to be centered south of Brooklyn. It toppled chimneys and moved houses from their foundations across the city and as far as Rahway.

Washington D.C. experienced a 5.8 magnitude quake in 2011, which was felt in the Northeast, Gates said. That quake cracked the Washington Monument.

A similar quake was recorded in 1737 in Weehawken, Gates noted.

“Imagine putting a 5.5 magnitude earthquake in Weehawken, New Jersey next to the Bridge, next to the tunnel,” Gates said. “Boy that would be a dangerous one.”

In 2008 Columbia University’s The Earth Institute posted an article titled: “Earthquakes May Endanger New York More Than Thought, Says Study.”

“Today, with so many more buildings and people, a magnitude 5 centered below the city would be extremely attention-getting,” the article’s co-author John Armbruster wrote. “We’d see billions in damage, with some brick buildings falling.”

The threat though, is not tangible to many, Armbruster wrote.

“There is no one now alive to remember that last one, so people tend to forget. And having only a partial 300-year history, we may not have seen everything we could see. There could be surprises — things bigger than we have ever seen,” Armbruster wrote.

The Earth Institute’s article did note New York City added earthquake-resistant building codes in 1995.

New Jersey also began to require earthquake-resistant standards in the 1990s. The state, following the 2011 Virginia quake, now requires lake communities to make dams able to withstand a magnitude 5 earthquake.

The issue, Gates said, is that many of the buildings were built before these codes went into effect. A “sizable” earthquake could cause much damage.

Then there’s the prediction that every 3,400 years this area can expect a quake at 7 magnitude.

According to the Earth Institute article, a 2001 analysis for Bergen County estimates a magnitude 7 quake would destroy 14,000 buildings and damage 180,000 in that area alone. Likewise, in New York City the damage could easily hit hundreds of billions of dollars.

Ebel noted that depending on the depth and power of a severe quake, damage could be also be wide ranging. In 2011, Washington D.C., 90 miles away from the epicenter, which was located in central Virginia, suffered significant damage. Cities like Philadelphia fall within that radius.

“The big one could happen tomorrow or 100 years from now. That’s the problem,” Gates said. It geological terms 100 years is just a spit in the ocean, he noted.

Then again North Jersey is more likely to be hit by hurricane in the next three years, Gates added.

Email: Fagan@NorthJersey.com

Staff Writer William Westhoven contributed to this report.

New Jersey’s top earthquakes

Dec. 19, 1737 — Weehawken, believed to be a 5-plus magnitude quake, could be very serious if occurred in same spot today.

Nov. 29, 1783 — Western New Jersey. Geologists are not exactly sure where it happened because area was sparsely populated. Estimated magnitude varies from 4.8 to 5.3. Felt from Pennsylvania to New England.

Aug. 10, 1884 — A 5.2 earthquake occurred somewhere near Jamaica Bay near Brooklyn. The quake toppled chimneys and moved houses off their foundations as far Rahway.

The biggest earthquake in the last 45 years of data available form USGS was a 3.8 quake centered in Carneys Point in Salem County on the morning of Feb.28, 1973

New Jersey has never recorded a fatality due to an earthquake, according to the DEP.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani may be the only man who can—but he’ll need help.

Ranj Alaaldin4:50 AM ET

Members of the Abbas combat squad, a Shiite militia group, carry a picture of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani during a parade in Basra, Iraq, on September 26, 2015. Nabil al-Jurani / AP

In June 2014, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the leading Shiite clergyman in the world, called on all able-bodied Iraqis to defend their country against the Islamic State. Iraq’s U.S.-trained armed forces had collapsed, fleeing the advance of ISIS as it seized Mosul and much of northern Iraq. Sistani’s fatwa mobilized a 100,000-strong fighting force known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), whose mostly Shiite fighters were instrumental in the fight against ISIS. The PMF is comprised of multiple Shiite militias who were established after 2014 as volunteer groups that took up arms in response to Sistani’s fatwa, filling the void left by the collapse of the Iraqi army. The majority of these groups are aligned with the Iraqi state and take their orders from the Iraqi government.

But residing within the PMF are Iran-aligned groups who have become the Forces’ most-powerful militias. While technically they have been under Baghdad’s command since 2016, in reality, they answer to their sponsors in Tehran. These groups have long exploited conflict and disorder in Iraq since the toppling of the Baath regime, while also expanding Iran’s influence in the country. They have been accused of sectarian atrocities that helped lay the groundwork for groups like ISIS and played a critical role in the bloody 2006 war between Arab Sunnis and Shiites. They have violently resisted attempts by the Iraqi state and the United States to disarm them. Since the emergence of ISIS and Sistani’s fatwa, these groups have exploited the security vacuum and the weakening of Iraq’s conventional forces to further consolidate their hold. Now, they seem poised to translate their wartime popularity into political gains in the coming elections in May, when they will contest the elections as the al-Fateh (or “Conquest”) bloc.

With ISIS vanquished and Iraq’s security forces reconstituted and reorganized (thanks to U.S. training and support), some expected that Sistani would revoke his fatwa and dismantle the PMF last December. But Sistani cannot simply dissolve the PMF, a state institution that provides livelihoods and prestige to its fighters. Doing so would spark a public backlash and undermine Iraq’s Shiite clerical establishment. Neither can he confront Iran’s proxies alone as they, and Shiite militias more generally, have proved themselves formidable actors. (The United States tried with more than 100,000 troops during the occupation and failed. )

But left untouched, Iran’s proxies will continue exacerbating sectarian tensions that could very well enable the resurgence of ISIS. Sistani will have to confront them eventually—but not by himself, and not in the way some may expect.

Essential to the Shiite militias’ survival over the years has been their capacity to adapt to the political and legal constraints imposed on them. They either attach themselves to longstanding parties or rebrand themselves as socio-cultural movements that provide social services to local, often destitute communities. Groups like Asaib ahl al-Haq, which has been complicit in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi personnel and civilians, were established by Iran after 2003 and have since transitioned into powerful armed groups that enjoy access to state institutions and resources, yet continue to function autonomously. Iran-aligned Shiite militias have, in essence, established themselves as Iraq’s version of Lebanon’s Hezbollah: socio-cultural movements with a military and social-welfare wing that operates independently of the state.

Asaib al-Haq is not the only Shiite militia in Iraq that has benefitted from Baghdad’s resources without ever submitting to its control or to civilian oversight. Another prominent example is the Badr Brigade, an organization established by Iran during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. While it began as a militia, since 2003 it has controlled Iraq’s interior ministry, and today commands a 37,000-strong federal police force. The Iraqi interior ministry answers not to the prime minister, but to the Badr hierarchy, led by its leader Hadi al-Ameri, who fought alongside Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq war. He also now leads the PMF. While the Badr Brigade is the only Iranian proxy that controls an Iraqi ministry, this may not be the case for long.

Iraq’s army is not strong enough to confront these groups. But Sistani has the credibility to lead such an effort. He has long served as a critical check on the power of Iraq’s corrupt ruling elite. After the toppling of Saddam, he ensured that the process of writing a new constitution would be led by an elected assembly, rather than by Washington’s favored Iraqi elites. While he failed to prevent sectarian war, his call for calm, restraint, and unity, helped ensure that the conflict did not transform into a genocide against Sunnis. In August 2014, only two months after his call to arms against ISIS, he forced out then-prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose corrupt and authoritarian rule led to the collapse of the Iraqi army.

The Ayatollah has historically resisted Iran’s efforts to export its theocracy to Iraq. He has criticized and will continue to pressure Iran’s proxies through his sermons. While Sistani’s record suggests he’s up for combatting Iran’s proxies, he’ll need help. That may come from nationalist, anti-Iran voices like Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers. Both al-Sadr and Sistani have backed Iraq’s anti-corruption protests, which have been led by members of civil society, including human rights organizations and other NGOs. Hundreds of thousands of Sadr’s supporters, for instance, mobilized in 2016 to call for reform and an end to sectarian governance. Many chanted anti-Iranian slogans. Sadr’s visits to the Gulf have also strengthened Iraq’s ties with the Arab Sunni world. These relationships could establish cross-sectarian alliances to contain Iran-aligned factions.

The United States has an important role to play in all this. Maintaining its military presence in Iraq will help contain Iran’s proxies, so long as it does not weaken Tehran’s rivals like the Kurds and Sunnis. This is exactly what happened last October, when al-Abadi’s forces and Iranian proxies reclaimed oil-rich Kirkuk and its surrounding areas from the Kurds. Indeed, al-Abadi, who has been billed in some quarters as America’s man in Baghdad, has relied on Iran-backed militias to maintain Baghdad’s control over territories that are disputed with the Kurds.

As a result of that onslaught, Iran’s proxies now control Kirkuk and other strategically vital towns and cities. With every inch of territory Iran’s proxies acquire, their influence becomes stronger in the rest of Iraq. Al-Abadi has even contemplated an alliance with Iran’s proxies, a move that has been criticized by Sistani and the Najaf religious establishment, al-Sadr, and Arab Sunni and Kurdish factions. Washington would do well to heed the lessons of the past and avoid creating a strongman in Baghdad who may one day turn his back on the United States.

To contain Tehran, the United States could also help prevent these groups from appropriating the $1 billion allocated to the PMF from the Iraqi national budget, and curb their access to the billions of dollars that the international community intends to contribute to the reconstruction of Iraq. These resources enhance the battlefield superiority of Iran’s proxies. They also allow them to shape Iraq’s political system according to their own ideologies, while molding the fabric of its society through its sophisticated propaganda.

Sistani, who champions a pluralistic, representative Iraqi state, can go a long way toward containing Iran’s proxies. On his own, however, he can only do so much.

“Our point is enough is enough. They need to start to act as a normal country. The revolution is over. If they want to be respected in the world they need to abide by the rules of the world.”

The sunset clause allows Iran to gradually increase production of centrifuges and uranium enrichment after eight to ten years.
Speaking in London at the Royal Institute for International Affairs at Chatham House a few hours earlier, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied that the JCPOA contained a sunset clause, saying the deal made clear Iran’s “permanent” commitment to not having nuclear weapons.

But he insisted the nuclear deal still gave Iran the right to continue its ballistic missile program.
“We — that is Iran and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action participants — decided quite intentionally to de-link Iran’s nuclear program from any other issue. Otherwise if we had wanted to have a package — with ballistic missiles, regional issues — then we would still be in negotiations,” said Araghchi, who is also Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator.

“We were successful (in negotiating JCPOA) because we focused on one issue. It would be a big mistake if anyone tried to link the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to any other issue — to regional issues, to Syria or Yemen. Not only would we lose the JCPOA but it would not help those other issues.”

He accused the US of pouring “poison” on Iran by prevaricating over whether Tehran had complied with the terms of the nuclear deal.
“The US has created an atmosphere of uncertainty. This is like poison for the business community for Iran. This destructive atmosphere prevents banks, companies, entities from working with Iran.”
US President Donald Trump’s denunciations of the deal were “a violation of the letter and the text of the deal, not just the spirit.”
Iran had accepted some restrictions on its stockpiles of material as part of the deal to earn the trust of the other parties to the deal.

Araghchi told the Chatham House audience that while the nuclear deal “is a successful story for you — the West,” Iranians had not benefited greatly from the lifting of sanctions because of what he described as the suspicion and mistrust generated primarily by the US.

He was speaking at an official Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) ceremony.

The statement by Rezai, a former commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), was made as a reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had said on Sunday February 18: “Israel could act against Iran if necessary.”

Netanyahu made the statement at a security conference in Munich while showing a piece from “an Iranian drone” downed in Israel.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in his address at the same conference characterized Netanyahu’s speech as “a cartoonish circus, which does not even deserve a response.”

Israel had expressed serious concern about “the establishment of Iran’s military presence in Syria” several months ago, when it accused Tehran of setting up a factory to manufacture “precision missiles” for the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Damascus and Tehran have said that Iran’s military presence in Syria is legitimate and based on mutual agreements.

Ali Akbar Velayati, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei’s senior adviser for international affairs said last week that Iran’s military presence in Syria would continue based on those agreements.

According to a Mehr News Agency report, Rezai in his reaction to Netanyahu’s statement said: “We tell Israelis that they cannot do a damn thing.”

“If you decide to do anything, we would level Tel Aviv to the ground, and you will not have time even to escape,” Said Rezai.

Rezai was also a presidential candidate twice; in 2009 and 2013.

Iranian officials, including a former president, members of the Parliament and the commander of IRGC have repeatedly threatened to totally demolish Tel Aviv; a threat that led Israel to view Iran as an enemy of its existence.